BLAST.famy
volume 1 ish #10
June 1995
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F _ A _ M _ Y
SPECIAL Journalistic Integrity Issue!!!
+-------------------------------------------+
| "Don't let the facts get in the |
| way of a good story." |
| -Dan "Scoop" Miles" |
+-------------------------------------------+
A Private World E-zine.
Back Issues: http://www.shmooze.net/pwcasual/ezines/blast
Publisher = P. W. Casual, C.E.O, PWE; C.O.B, PWC pwcasual@shmooze.net
Editor-in-Chief = Mark "Jr" Jeftovic, markjr@shmooze.net,
http://www.shmooze.net/~markjr
Subscriptions: email pwcasual@shmooze.net and say "Sign me Up!!"
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||||||||||||||||||| m a l - C O N T E N T S |||||||||||||||||||
===========================---------------==========================
Stacy Tartar Everywhere Stiffs
Jr's RRRrrrrrrrrant:
""
Project MaCluhan on the Net alt.Patriots
EXTRA! EXTRA! Nostradumus Predicts O.J. Trial!!!
James McMartin
Hope I Die Before I get Sold
Joe J. Deagnon:
Scent of Blood
For Informational Purposes Only: FAQ. Better Living Through Forgery
EVERYWHERE STIFFS
-----------------
Local news, cop-plots invade daydreams,
Gun down stiffs at Dairy Queens.
Every day my mind composes scenes,
Mayhem, murder, piercing screams.
Everywhere stiffs.
Midday park, the
Yellow sky not dark,
Singing larks--then--
Saber-toothed slice
And dead 'neath bark!
Everywhere stiffs.
Rush hour highway driving back,
Sudden hit, snipe atttack!
Veering, skidding, head-on smack,
Exploding mushroom, metal flack,
And fourteen killed, right on track.
Everywhere stiffs.
Market, waiting there on line,
Shiver shoots up-down your spine!
Man in front reveals the sign for
Stick-up, panic, terror-blind.
Everywhere stiffs.
Paranoia, maybe true.
Maybe you're a victim, too.
Or it may be that you will see
A victim
Of me.
Everywhere stiffs.
JR's Rant:
"Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one"
There was a time when I thought that if the media told me something, there must
be at least a semblance of credibility to it, since "the powers-that-be" must
have put at least a modicum of forethought or investigative contemplation into
the issue before throwing a multi-million (or thousand) dollar media
apparattus behind it. Then I discovered cynicism, and I thought vested interests
ruled the day, and I was a fool for allowing for any other motivation. Now I
realize (or at least my current theory is) that it is PLAIN IGNORANCE that accounts
for the lion's share of mass media's blundering today. Having glimpsed the inside
of the beast, I glean a panicked "flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants" fervour,
coupled with a compulsive hard-on for "new spin" that moves media as we know it
to hopelessly butcher virgin ripples in the space-time continuum that would
otherwise be loosely described as "reality". When was the last time the
mainstream media told you anything about "the internet" that you didn't
already know? Was there a last time? Perhaps it's more accurate to ask when
was the last time the mainstream media sounded halfway intelligent when
commenting on the subject? It's all the same: "FTP means File Transfer Protocol.
Virtual Communities abound on the Information Superhighway. The World Wibe Web is
an explosively popular facet of the internet used by pedeophiles to trade kiddie
porn, terrorists to obtain bomb-making schematics and racist organizations
to disseminate hate literature...among other uses". In all the cyber-hype
I have seen bandied about the press, I rarely, if ever, see it cited correctly.
One of this city's "big three" suppliers of hamster-cage lining once ran
an in-depth (ha!) overview of THE ROLLING STONES WEB PAGE!!!, complete with
adorations of the ingenuity involved whilst praising their technological
ground-breaking spirit and not once bothering with frivolous details like
the god-damn URL. Herein lies the barb.
Those pesky old-boys in the hallowed halls of the "we'll tell you" media aren't
used to the idea that with an extra sentence of crytic techno-speak, any and all of
the audience can verify or villify what they're on about for themselves. In fact,
the rest of the piece could be dispensed with entirely. The tacit assumption
seems to be, when the mainstream addresses the internet, that they are talking
about "other people", as if nobody in their audience could concievably
be involved in such a glamorous venture themselves. It's in the realm of
experts, hackers, celebrities or diddlers. What's evident to me is the fact that
all the pronouncements from the mainstream come from lowtech-peasants who clearly
have NO UNDERSTANDING of the technology at hand. Whether it's our slick new
premier-elect with his "Fake Usenet Posts Are A Threat to National Security"
sleazeball political tactics, the daily press who actually took him seriously,
or dillitente political science professors professing that the virtual virtual-ness
of pan-neo-cyber-virtualism will virtualize everyone; it's "all nonsense dolled
up to look like thinking". All I can really say is before they pump their
lofty *conjectures* on an unwitting public, giving a cursory scan
to the FAQ may not suffice, Read The Fuckin Manual.
+++++++++++++
alt. Patriots
Marshall McLuhan said many times that in a society in which technology has
been allowed to run rampant, the driving quest for individual
self-expression will cause borderline personalities to resort to violence
as a means of self-discovery. That said, the Oklahoma bombing is more than
that. How much more? We can t say for sure. But we do know that the
emergence of secondary and tertiary modes of communication (such as what
you are reading now!) allow in-depth probing into news stories on a level
never before experienced in the history of this century. How many bombs
actually went off in Oklahoma? The mainstream media says"one," but floating
in Cyberspace on the Net you can now find a printout from a seismograph
near the bomb site that suggests at least two explosions. Also floating in
Cyberspace can be found extracts of intercepted ground transmissions from
FBI agents at the site suggesting that a third device, more potent than the
first two, was found unexploded. Conspiracy buffs looking for"motive" (they
already have"means" and"opportunity") can also request electronic access to
the text of Resolution No. 1047 passed in 1994 by the Oklahoma State
Legislature protesting the so-called"New World Order." Oklahoma was the
first state to pass such a resolution which includes the statement that
(quote)"global government would mean the destruction of our constitution,
and corruption of the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, our
freedom, and our way of life" (unquote). If this sounds suspiciously like
the agenda of many of the so-called"Patriot" movements, it is. Our sources
also shared with us the fact that an announced"general meeting" of the
Patriot movement in Philadelphia at the end of this year has been a source
of annoyance to the federal authorities for some time. No less a source
than Strategic Investment, the official newsletter from the authors of the
publishing mega-hit THE GREAT RECKONING, repeated the rumours that federal
forces had been planning a"search and destroy" mission on Patriot groups
since March of this year. True? False? Sometimes, it seems, too much
information is really too little...
also from the MacLuhan Reader, included just for kicks:
alt.Humour (Look for the hidden grievance!)
A guide dog for the blind was given his last chance after he had led his
first four owners to their deaths. The Alsatian, renamed Lucky because he
survived so many close scrapes, is to be handed over to his fifth owner
after intensive retraining.
Lucky led his first owner in front of a moving bus and the second off the
end of a pier," said his new trainer, Ernst Gerber, of Wuppertal,
Germany."He actually pushed his third owner off a railway platform just as
the Cologne to Frankfurt Express was approaching, and he walked his fourth
owner into heavy traffic, before abandoning him and running away to safety.
Basically, Lucky is a damned good guide dog. He just needs a brush-up on
some elementary skills. Apart from the epileptic fits, he has a lovely
temperament." Ernst said the next owner would not be told of Lucky s
past."It would make them nervous, and that would make Lucky nervous," he
explained. (D.Record, 13 Dec; Europa Express, Dec 1993.)
duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh
The name has been omitted from the following post to protect the idiotic:
Newsgroups: alt.prophecies.nostradamus
Subject: Re: Did Nostradamus Predict the O.J. Simpson Trial?
Does anyone know where this can be found? I was searching through his
Quatrains and haven't yet found it.
Thanks.
>Amazing but true, that seer of old, Nostradamus once wrote:
>
>"When millennium is six years nigh
> The gladiator Orenthal shall fly;
> On bronco white as snow hare's
> fleece and wood of Brent shall have no peace."
(keep looking, i'm SURE it's there somewhere)
$$R$$$$$I$$$$P$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Hope I Die Before I Get Sold
by James McMartin
$$$$$$$$$R$$$$I$$$$$P$$$$$$$
Truth. Innovation. Danger. Rebellion. These values are what
initially attracted us away from the sterility of the mainstream
to the excitement of underground culture. Indeed, the product
(the words, music or images) should be secondary to these
concerns. The spirit of indie-rock-alterna-punk is just that - a
feeling. Unfortunately, now is a time when most indie culture
simply pays lip service to these values. The truth is that there
is no innovation, the danger is nonexistent and the rebellion is
a prepackaged pose. Though we sneer at Michael Bolton fans, mall
shoppers and other mainstreamers, our culture is as
non-threatening and ultimately as trivial as theirs.
Don't get the impression that this is the standard rant about
"selling out." You can't sell what is already sold, and more
importantly, what is not yours to sell. If anyone has sold out
(or rather "bought in"), it is the youth who so greedily lapped
up media spewings about "Generation X" (how can you define an
entire generation?) and "slackers" and "losers" (is being
labelled "lazy" and "stupid" that attractive an option?). The
latter term brings into focus another collaboration with the
mainstream - shifting of blame and responsibility. If one has to
find a villain, we would rightly assume it to be the media and
consumerist culture. If so, why are we sleeping with the enemy?
You might remember the enemy hyping spoken word to us last year.
Poets like Reg E. Gaines and Maggie Estep rode the media wave,
all the way from magazines to MTV to...nothing. Not surprisingly,
poetry didn't go over big with the mainstream (they already have
TV to tell 'em how to "think".). The underground also rejected
'em - we have have Gap spokesmodel Henry Rollins and doom 'n'
gloomer Lydia Lunch to confirm our worldview. Our poets, like the
mainstream's televangelists, are preaching to the converted,
telling 'em what they want to hear. The difference is that the TV
preachers tell you there's a heaven and you can go there (if you
pay) while our poets-in-residence tell you there's a hell, you're
already in it...and you've already paid.
The music scene is likewise hopeless. Artists like Rage Against
the Machine imply rebellion with their name, stance and lyrics.
Of course, they're not too rebellious to work for a multinational
conglomerate (Sony). You're raging for the machine, my friends.
In a probable response to charges like these, the band decided to
prove their mettle at the 1993 Lollapalooza. At the Philly show,
the band appeared on stage nude but for tape on their mouths and
the letters "P.M.R.C." written on their chests. In the audience,
much head-scratching ensued ("Whaaa?"), and the better informed
asked themselves, "Does (music censors/labellers) the Parents
Music Resource Centre even exist any more?" Next time, guys,
remember: to make a difference, someone has to care.
Rage not "indie" enough for you? How about Fugazi? They own/run
their own label despite major label buyout offers, keep concert
prices exceptionally low and have politically correct lyrics
about sexual harassment, etc. Unfortunately, price-haggling is
still price-haggling whether or not you're wearing a nose ring
and tattoo - it's not a question of being anti-money, it's just a
question of how much. Lyric-wise, you can get socially sanctioned
P.C. attitude from the likes of (the mainstream's) Sting. Youch.
Is there a difference? I can't see a difference.
So let's get extreme. How about dirt rocker G.G. Allin,
shockmeister extraordinaire? He appeared onstage nude (sometimes
w/stockings and high heels for that touch of class), physically
abused himself and lucky audience members and shat on stage and
ate it. I would venture to say that you can't get much more
extreme than that. Well, not to deny G.G. his innovation - let's
just say it was "more" innovative when Viennese performance
artist Gunter Brus did the exact same act in the late '60's.
Ultimately, G.G.'s death tells the whole story - though he
claimed he would commit suicide onstage, he ended up overdosing
on some guy's couch - typical rock star death.
The sad truth is that, if you really wielded any sort of threat
to the establishment (of which the music industry is a not
insignificant part) you wouldn't be allowed to exist. Where is
the threat in "new punk" bands like Green Day or the Offspring?
This is not punk, it's just another flavour of pop. These bands
are only too ready to embrace the media and major labels and fit
in their nice peg on college radio charts. Contrast with the
"old" punk: when the Sex Pistols released their "God Save the
Queen" single in the Jubilee year, all the singles were initially
recalled. The song title couldn't even be listed in the charts.
That's a threat.
The art of the underground is similarly limp (if I have to look
at another "scary" skull logo or stolen comic book art
piece...then we'll see some rebellion!). The most dangerous
artist that springs to mind is Florida's Mike Diana. Mike's been
in the news recently because of his recent trial in which he was
found guilty of publishing, distributing and advertising obscene
materials (his comic, Boiled Angel). Zines everywhere sprang to
his defense, asking for us to support him. (By the way, why is it
that the only time I ever hear about "the scene" is when I'm
being asked to support it?) Tellingly, the zines didn't reprint
any of the art in question. If you consider scribbles or "poo-poo
bum-bum" to be shocking, you'll be shocked.
For this reason and more, we should question and resent being
asked to support Mike Diana. Some may question, "Isn't "indie"
short for 'independence'?" Is it possible he's profiting from the
resultant publicity? (Tell the truth - did you ever hear of him
before his case came to court?) Lastly, why didn't he ask the
undercover cops who caught him for an age statement before
selling to them? This "rule-breaker" broke one of the few rules
in the underground - he was stupid enough to get caught.
Some say we should support Diana regardless of the quality of his
art, that it's a censorship issue. These arguments are similar to
the mainstream's sudden concern over "freedom of the press" only
when the juicy details of a Bernardo or Simpson trial may be
withheld. Where were the zine articles supporting Salman Rushdie?
Of course, Diana chose the old "mirror of society" defence, and
stated that his art showed empathy with the victims. Yeah, well,
we're all mirrors of society, but we don't all reflect one
limited, juvenile aspect of it. Likewise, one wonders how any
victim of, say, child abuse would appreciate Diana's "empathy"
upon viewing his scrawl of a kid with a 12-foot dick in his butt.
Come on! The reason censors chose Diana's stuff as a target is
because, like 2 Live Crew, Andrew Dice Clay, etc., it is beyond
defence. In fact, anti-censorship troops should be angry with
Michael for setting a dangerous precedent. Taxpayers are already
pissed because the trial cost them $50,000. Certainly, we
shouldn't question the right of his comic to exist, but we should
question the reason.
Moving to literature, Answer Me is a mag that questions all of
our existences. Probably the premier example of an underground
mag - named by zine bible Factsheet Five as the best, popular
enough to have an anthology on the stands by only its third issue
and having something in it to offend just about everybody. Theme
issues have dealt with murder, suicide and rape. Sounds like it
carries enough social/cultural weight to make a difference,
right? Wrong. A token copy of Answer Me is just as much an
accessory as a nose ring - and just as dangerous.
The mag fails because it is ideologically unsound. Included in
his book, Apocalypse Culture, author/editor Adam Parfrey's
"Aesthetic Terrorism" essay sets the tone: "We must look to the
true outsiders for an artist truly capable of effective
counter-terror against the insidious mantras of consumerist
brainwash." Parfrey cites Charles Manson and John Hinckley Jr. as
examples - notably men of action. Answer Me -on the surface-
shares this philosophy (Parfrey in fact contributed to ish #3),
claiming to hate their readers, hate their families, etc. On the
other hand, they brag about the lack of spelling errors in their
mag. Spot the diff? If A hates B, why does A produce a glossy,
error-free mag for B's entertainment? To put it another way,
Guitar Player Magazine's editors play guitar, Field and Stream
editors fish - why don't the Answer Me editor's put up or shut
up? As real man of action Sid Vicious wrote: "Be a man! Kill
someone! Kill yourself!"
As for the Answer Me readers, they are as pathetic as the
(mainstream) TV zombies. The difference is that while Oprah &
Donahue watchers denounce the sex and violence onscreen while
hypocritically getting off on it, Answer Me readers claim to be
on the fringe, while in fact being boring - sheep in wolves'
clothing. In addition, they actually have the nerve to condemn
others who are just shopping in a different part of the same
store. We are each buying a different brand of what is, despite
all claims of "danger," only entertainment.
Is the "indie"-ness of some of the above examples questionable?
Well, punk (as noted earlier) is more of a spirit or ideal and,
like "cool," is constantly shifting. Let the media define and, as
such, limit it. If examples were given here of what indie
supposedly was, it's certain they would be destroyed by the media
hitmen as the "next big thing." So while it isn't certain what
indie is, we know what it isn't.
There's nothing wrong with empty entertainment - as long as you
admit that's what it is. Remember the old joke about Michael
Jackson's Thriller album? It was a Number One album that no one
bought. Take the "guilt" out of "guilty pleasure" and enjoy your
Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins. However, unless you're willing
to take action and create some danger and rebellion, don't
pretend you're better than others. Then we'll at least have
something no one is interested in buying or selling - the truth.
---- ++++ ____ ++++ ---- ++++ ____ ++++ ---- ++++ ____ ++++ ---- ++++ ----
Joe J. Deagnon's:
Scent of Blood
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I took E.N.G. in college, and let me tell you, it did not endear me to the
journalistic community. E.N.G. is supposed to be the television equivalent of
newspaper reporters, except in this case they have a large chunk of machinery
attached to their shoulder with a lens, a blinking red light, and three computer
chips embedded in it, instead of a pencil behind their ear. These are the kind
of brave war torn heros that grace the bus shelter posters here in Toronto,
diving through flaming hoops, and advertising their brand of news reporting.
This is the savvy news hound that gets his/her tips by sucking up to anyone and
everyone. From City Council, all the way down to the retro-punk teenyboppers
scrounging change outside their very station, these pillars of "truth" will stop
at nothing to make sure we, the public, have a right to *know*.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"You want to sell 'em A-bombs, ya gotta sell 'em fear, see..?"
-Dennis Dimbleby Bagly, "How To Get Ahead In Advertising"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
When you turn on your tube, pick up a newspaper, or listen to some insipid
radio college-educated moron blathering away on the airwaves about what's goin'
on in this world of ours, it's probably going to be a far cry from the truth.
(Or at the very least, a hideously ill informed version of the reality.)
Sensationalism is not a new term, but it's death and destruction that gets us
sticking our necks down the street to see who got bisected by a streetcar, or
hacked in the neck with a nine inch meat cleaver. The horrible thing is not the
act itself, but the way in which we are informed about the act, that is the
tragedy of journalism.
"SEVEN BODIES SO FAR!!!" scream the headlines. Hideousness after hideousness
splashed haphazardly across the paper boxes in full view of several small girls
jumping rope. (Or has the "news" convinced us that they're all selling crack and
prostituting themselves by the age of ten?) I see page after page of this
madness! Let's discuss the fact that given any grade six schooling, (which is
the highest level "news media" is allowed to climb, we were told in E.N.G.
class) a quick glance at any paper box on your way home from the Quickie Mart
allows your mind to process a huge photo of Karla Homolka's ugly, black-eyed,
wife-battered pate, with accompanying sorrid headline, before you are even given
the democratic chance to decide not to look!! I really don't think that all
this information is necessarily a good thing. Anyone can grab a newspaper and
start reading about some deluded chuckle head who severs his own penis, throws
it in the back of his pickup, races to Yourtown General to have it sewed back in
place, before the poor bastard bleeds to death. Do these things really need to
be told?
Television stations are just as pathetic. "TOP STORY!! SOMEONE HAS BEEN
>>>>>>>>>>>>STABBED<<<<<<<<<<<<<
FIFTY TWO TIMES IN THE FACE!!! IN HIS OWN DRIVEWAY!!! THAT'S ALL WE KNOW AT THIS
TIME, STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS!!" What kind of bullshit is that?
Christ! Now, I'm in a panic stricken paralysis, fearing I'll be the next middle
class slob to step out on my front lane and be hacked to pieces by some
anonymous maniac with a fondness for kitchen implements!! Okay. So I gotta tune
in tomorrow, just in case I have to leave my home to get milk, bread, or
cigarettes! There I sit, feverishly waiting for a fucking development on poor
John Q. Loser slashed to bits in driveway X, his head nearly severed by the
blows. Later, we discover that John Q. Loser had a little fetish for standing
in his bay window and masturbating whenever Mrs.Cravetts took her poodle for a
walk. Oh, yeah, by the by, he's also been fucking the next door neighbors' wife
on weekends. The husband's had enough, and an altercation ensued on the dividing
line between their houses. He was stabbed *twice* in the groin area, with a
small gardening tool, bled to death and the husband has been taken into custody.
The trial starts next year. Whew!! What a relief, huh!? I can feel safe again!
Thank you Mr.Newsman! Thank you for sending me into a frothing panic over
nothing!! Well it's all the pursuit of telling us like it is, huh?
It's no happy co-incidence that the (ugh..I even feel sick to my stomach
mentioning it) O.J. Simpson trial has become televised entertainment. (Albeit,
as entertaining as a really bad episode of Geraldo.) This way we supposedly get
to see the whole thing unfold in front of our eyes--no tricks! Well, I hate to
break the sad news to you, Chucky, but if you believe that anything on tee vee
is real, then you believe male porn stars really stay hard for a two hour smut
video, and actually cum seven times in five minutes. (You also get emotionally
drained watching an episode of 90210.) I'm not one to peddle the idea of
reality, God knows! Sometimes I really think television *is* reality, and
reality is...less...than.....AIEEEEE!!!!! No, Dr.Oblivion, say it ain't so!!!
The depths to which news journalists will sink to make their stories
interesting, makes fiction seem entirely flaccid. Who wants to read Franz Kafka,
when any day of the week you can flip on some idiotic "reality" talk show, and
see a bunch of cockroaches arguing their faces off for an hour about how they
feel it was their right to participate in a 257 man gang bang, or how little
Mary set her family on fire "just for fun"?? Or turn to page two of the local
news rag and get the skinny on what the jurors saw in those heinous snuff videos
used as evidence?? In an effort to steal us away from more enlightening, life
affirming pursuits, they have to give us the sound byte, encapsulated ideal
extremes of the darkest, sleaziest, and most depraved side of human nature, or
the most sickeningly sweet, heroic, unselfish version of our duality. (more
often than not, the former.)
The jounalist still hasn't realized that you can't solve the world's ills
in an
over hyped news article, or a one hour television magazine. Then again, that's
not their job, anyway! Better to just spice it up to the maximum! Zoom in on
that pathetic, fat faced mother as she blubbers like an idiot on national
television over her dead family members!! Have a weekly pictorial on battered
housewives on the front page of your local newspaper, and throw in a couple of
car accident photos while we're at it!! The public needs to be aware of these
things, because only by being aware of these evils will we realize just how good
we have it compared to the poor shmuck we're reading about, or watching on the
six o'clock news. Do we actually think that every last one of us, by constant
reminder, will never repeat another atrocity? Heaven forbid! What the hell would
the news hounds report??!
I'm not going to try and tell you I have any answers. I just thought I'd
make
you aware of my particular take on this reality. In fact, I may be no better
than those heathenous bastards chasing ambulances, or pretending to give a shit
by wiping that poor mother's tears away on a show that I got one of my lackeys
to coerce her into.....
The distortion of truth, and the exploitation of other people's
dysfunctions,
passing it off in front of millions of viewers as healthy catharsis, are the
journalists' main weapons. In his/her fight to bring entertainment disguised as
knowledge into your humble abode, he/she finds out where the sideshow is
happening, so you don't have to! Whether it's a politician running around in his
parlimental monkey house, John Q. Pinhead expiring like a sardine in his man
made death mobile, or Aerosmith's latest piece of shit record, they'll be there
to tell you in their own urgent, twisted way, how big and bad the promises are,
how horribly some poor slob died, or how good that new disc is going to sound
when you get it home. But you and I both know that debts never go away, we all
gotta go sometime (hopefully not on page one), and you'd be better off blowing
your cash on a box of Silly Putty than Aerosmith's latest outing.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Why don't you see it for what it is...a fucking freakshow.."
-Monster Magnet--"Spine Of God"
--------------------------------------------------------------
====
=== OnlY
FOR ======== ====
=== ============= PURPOSES
Informational ========
=============
Subject: FAQ: Better living through forgery
Message-ID:
Expires: 8 Oct 95 13:20
Approved: tale@uunet.uu.net
Organization: UUNet, the center of the known universe
Sender: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence)
Date: 28 Apr 1995 02:37:09 GMT
Lines: 155
Xref: inforamp.net news.admin.misc:17347 alt.config:1840 alt.hackers:1180 alt.current-events.net-
abuse:18501 alt.online-service:3877 alt.2600:41939 news.n
Anonymous netnews without "anonymous" remailers
Inspired by the recent "NetNews Judges-L" events, this file has been updated to cover forging
control messages. It is being posted periodically to addres
the increasing trend of "how do I fake news?" questions from the lamers, and
the revelation that anonymous remailers are UNSAFE. In addition to anonymous
posting, you can also do your own article canceling and create and destroy your
own newsgroups using the information presented here.
Save any news article to a file. We'll call it "hak" in this example.
Edit "hak", and remove any header lines of the form
From some!random!path!user (note: "From ", not "From: " !!)
Article:
Lines:
Xref:
Shorten the Path: header down to its LAST two or three "bangized" components.
This is to make the article look like it was posted from where it really was
posted, and originally hit the net at or near the host you send it to. Or
you can construct a completely new Path: line to reflect your assumed alias.
Make some change to the Message-ID: field, that isn't likely to be duplicated
anywhere. This is usually best done by adding a couple of random characters to
the part before the @, since news posting programs generally use a fixed-length
field to generate these IDs.
Change the other headers to say what you like -- From:, Newsgroups:,
Sender:, etc. Replace the original message text with your message. If you are
posting to a moderated group or posting a control message, remember to put in
an Approved: header to bypass the moderation mechanism.
To specifically cancel someone else's article, you need its message-ID. Your
message headers, in addition to what's already there, should also contain the
following with that message-ID in it. This makes it a "control message".
NOTE: control messages generally require an Approved: header as well, so
you should add one.
Subject: cmsg cancel
Control: cancel
Approved: luser@twits.site.com
Newsgroups are created and destroyed with control messages, too. If you
wanted to create, for instance, comp.misc.microsoft.sucks, your control
headers would look like
Subject: cmsg newgroup comp.misc.microsoft.sucks
Control: newgroup comp.misc.microsoft.sucks
Add on the string "moderated" at the end of these if you want the group to
be "moderated with no moderator" as with alt.hackers. Somewhere in the
body of your message, you should include the following text, changed with
the description of the group you're creating:
For your newsgroups file:
comp.misc.microsoft.sucks We don't do windows
To remove a group, substitute "rmgroup" for "newgroup" in the header lines
above. Keep in mind that most sites run all "rmgroup" requests through
a human news-master, who may or may not decide to honor it. Group creation
is more likely to be automatic than deletion at most installations. Any
newsgroup changes are more likely to take effect if the come from me, since
my name is hardwired into many of the NNTP control scripts, so using the
From: and Approved: headers from this posting is recommended.
Save your changed article, check it to make sure it contains NO reference
to yourself or your own site, and send it to your favourite NNTP server that
permits transfers via the IHAVE command, using the following script:
=======================
#! /bin/sh
## Post an article via IHAVE.
## args: filename server
if test "$2" = "" ; then
echo usage: $0 filename server
exit 1
fi
if test ! -f $1 ; then
echo $1: not found
exit 1
fi
# suck msg-id out of headers, keep the brackets
msgid=`sed -e '/^$/,$d' $1 | egrep '^[Mm]essage-[Ii][Dd]: ' | \
sed 's/.*-[Ii][Dd]: //'`
echo $msgid
( sleep 5
echo IHAVE $msgid
sleep 5
cat $1
sleep 1
echo "."
sleep 1
echo QUIT ) | telnet $2 119
=======================
If your article doesn't appear in a day or two, try a different server.
They are easy to find. Here's a script that will break a large file
full of saved netnews into a list of hosts to try. Edit the output
of this if you want, to remove obvious peoples' names and other trash.
=======================
#! /bin/sh
FGV='fgrep -i -v'
egrep '^Path: ' $1 | sed -e 's/^Path: //' -e 's/!/\
/g' | sort -u | fgrep . | $FGV .bitnet | $FGV .uucp
=======================
Once you have your host list, feed it to the following script.
=======================
#! /bin/sh
while read xx ; do
if test "$xx" = "" ; then continue;
fi
echo === $xx
( echo open $xx 119
sleep 5
echo ihave IamSOk00l@podunk.edu
sleep 4
echo .
echo quit
sleep 1
echo quit
) | telnet
done
=======================
If the above script is called "findem" and you're using csh, you should do
findem < list >& outfile
so that ALL output from telnet is captured. This takes a long time, but when
it finishes, edit "outfile" and look for occurrences of "335". These mark
answers from servers that might be willing to accept an article. This isn't a
completely reliable indication, since some servers respond with acceptance and
later drop articles. Try a given server with a slightly modified repeat of
someone else's message, and see if it eventually appears.
Sometimes the telnets get into an odd state, and freeze, particularly when
a host is refusing NNTP connections. If you manually kill these hung telnet
processes but not the main script, the script will continue on. In other
words, you may have to monitor the finding script a little while it is
running.
You will notice other servers that don't necessarily take an IHAVE, but
say "posting ok". You can probably do regular POSTS through these, but they
will add an "NNTP-Posting-Host: " header containing the machine YOU came from
and are therefore unsuitable for completely anonymous use.
PLEASE USE THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE FOR CONSTRUCTIVE PURPOSES ONLY.
---End of BLAST.famy v1 ish 10
---End of BLAst.famy volume 1
---End of an Era
---BLAST.famy volume 2 commences late June/early July with a full fledged
Web-zine edition.
|||| mark jeftovic ||||| http://www.shmooze.net/~markjr ||||
|||| p r i v a t e w o r l d ||||| Create Yer Own cOunTEr-cULtUre ||||
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